Through nine books Priest has been the rock everyone has depended on. Two years ago Ankh was taken from Priest. He survived but now he’s watched everyone find love. He’s lonely and depends on Mal for friendship. He’s known him for years and the friendship gives Priest the one thing that has been missing since Ankh died.
Mal was friends with Ankh for 30 years and watched him and Priest make a life. He was abandoned by his wife and he raised his son by himself. He has abandonment issues from that.
He embarks on a friends with benefits with Priest. This works until things start to change. Then an event changes everything. The pushing away was hard to read. At several points I wanted to shake some sense into Priest but leave it to the brothers to rearrange Priest thinking. I was throughly happy with this story and how everything worked the way it was supposed to.